The best part of this ride to immortality is it doesn’t really matter in the first place.

That’s right, AJ McCarron would just as soon talk about scoring 33 of his team’s 35 points in a fifth grade basketball game as he would winning another championship at Alabama.

“Best game of my life,” he says.

And you believe him because if he ever let the burden of what he carries around take control of who he is, he’d never make it to spring practice. Much less the beginning of the 2013 season.

This is the life of the Alabama quarterback. Just when you think you’ve made it, the pressure starts all over.

“Let’s put it this way,” said Tide wideout Kevin Norwood. “I’m glad I’m the one catching it, not the one throwing it.”

Welcome to the world of playing quarterback at Alabama. High stakes, high reward.

Zero tolerance for failure.

That fifth-grade championship in the Little Flower Basketball Tournament looks better with each passing season.

AJ McCarron has done just about everything anyone could want at Alabama. He has won two national championships as a starter and can become the first player in NCAA FBS history to win three in that role.

But getting that fourth championship ring—he earned one redshirting in 2009 —will be the most difficult and demanding yet. And it has absolutely nothing to do with what Alabama faces on the field.

“I don’t think any of us can comprehend the pressure he has to win,” said former Alabama center Barrett Jones. “We all want to win, but it’s almost a sense of responsibility for the Alabama quarterback.”

That’s what makes McCarron’s final run in Tuscaloosa the storyline of the 2013 season. For two years he has dealt with the pressure of playing the position, and it only got the best of him one time—after, of all things, a win.

But that November night, as McCarron sat alone on the sideline bench and wept uncontrollably as the clock wound down on an improbable comeback victory over LSU, we saw a window into the pitfalls of playing the most important position on the field at Alabama.

Those weren’t tears of joy; it was emotional relief. It was a kid from Mobile, Ala., who never really liked the Tide while growing up and wanted to play for Miami, taking a mantle he never understood and doing what no one has ever done.

They don’t just celebrate championships at Alabama; they expect them. They don’t just expect flawless play from their quarterbacks; they demand it.

That’s what makes this coming season so unique, and so unlike any other in Alabama history. It’s not just the pursuit of another national title; it’s the player at the forefront cementing himself as the greatest quarterback in Alabama history.

Better than Joe Namath and Kenny Stabler. Better than Pat Trammell or any other championship quarterback who made wearing No.12 in Tuscaloosa a sacred thing.

None of those Tide legends won three national titles as a starter. None have four national championship rings; none were good enough to start for four seasons.

While redshirting in 2009, McCarron was moved to the top backup spot in October, and coach Nick Saban said he would have burned McCarron’s redshirt if starter Greg McElroy would’ve been injured. McCarron was that ready to play—and Saban was that comfortable in his decision.

“You’ve got to be strong-willed to play quarterback at Alabama,” Stabler says. “AJ has that mentality, that inner strength, to not let anything else distract you. It’s all about what happens on that field. You can’t control all that other stuff.”

That’s what made the night of the LSU game so unique, and what happened the following week a defining moment in McCarron’s career at Alabama. From the highs of throwing the winning touchdown pass on the road at LSU, to the lows of throwing a last-minute interception in a home loss to Texas A&M.

One game, one comeback, one loss, doesn’t define him or his team.

“It’s a long season,” McCarron says. “Crazy things happen.”

Without some fortunate breaks; without teams losing when they shouldn’t and Alabama riding the wave of SEC strength in the polls, who knows where McCarron would be at this point in his career. Without those breaks—and without the Tide taking advantage of those breaks—McCarron could just as easily be the quarterback who hasn’t proven he can win the big one.

Instead, he’s the guy who rolls into this offseason chasing a third championship as a starter and immortality.